invicta

Suggest that exact imitation leads nowhere. The cork ball hair rigged is fine on a fly rod, and better still if painted a bright yellow orange or white. Suggest 10mm if using size 8 hook.

So that's what they mean by KRAYfish

Just witnessed the same goings on at a lake near Hay on Wye - quite incredible. My first thought was that some ducks were fighting in the margins.

If I were ever to be limited to one fly for fishing still waters at this time of the year it would have to be a Gold Ribbed Hares Ear size 12. A gold head version of the same would also be useful for deeper work. That said, I would agree with the various pieces of advice given above.

As regards fly fishing for carp, may I suggest that you look out for the next edition of Fly-Fishing and Fly-Tying where I have contributed a rahefty article on the subject. Since submitting the piece a few weeks ago I have been lucky enough to take 10 doubles on the pattern described. No apologies for beating the drum as I think a lot of frustrated smallwater trout fishers will find cause for rejoicing

Should this warning be added to those already displayed on cigarette packets?

She was only a fly dresser's daughter, but her vice was squeezing too hard.

Bread may be fine, but why not try out the wide variety of chapati type rather thin uncooked pancakes offered both by asian and east med food stores. Have not tried myself, but I have been dawdling among the lentils and spices

Call goes out for a sniffer dog?

Heron Garages? But seriously have never seen this offered from tackle sources. Why not try the haberdashery route? You get a lot of entries on Google if you key in HABERDASHERY FEATHER UK Good hunting

This seems to be the place to mention something I devised while looking at ways to launch a floating dog pellet from a fly rod. It involves the use of netting. Not any old netting but some great material to be found in the bathroom accessories dept of Boots and some supermarkets. There you will find a turban-like object called, if you’ll forgive the expression, a body polisher, cost around £2. Unravelled it gives several yards of very light elasticated net of just the right mesh size. First, take about 8 inches of strong thread or braid (which I shall call the “string”) and tie a bulky knot at one end. Cut out a smallish piece of net, say 3x3 inches, and put your pellet bang in the middle together with the knotted end of the string. You now enclose everything in the net, which should be tightly pinched at the base of the pellet. Without letting go, you take a short length of sewing thread with which you make four half-hitches to form a neck at the base of the pellet, tightening the net round the pellet as you do so. Pull the string until the knot (now trapped inside) comes up hard against the neck. Trim the waste net (there will be a lot below the neck) to a stub, taking care not to cut the string. For perfection, press the stub, which has a low melting point, against a hot iron, leaving just the tiniest amount to keep the hitches in place. Use the rest of the string to make a hair-rig type attachment to the hook. If you place one of these in a glass of water, you will see that the pellet swiftly swells through the mesh, which all but disappears. It should take you less than an hour to produce enough to last from dawn to dusk. For added buoyancy (perhaps with pop-up possibilities) the contents of the net should include a square piece of foam, 3-4mm thick, which should form a cap on the pellet, secured of course by the tightening of the net. This can also do wonders for visibility. The netting does not seem to put the carp off – at any rate not in the very well stocked waters where I have been waving my fly rod about. Better than bands or superglue, in my opinion. .

Just a suggestion based on something I have been trying out for transporting casts of two or more flies. Various discount stores offer swimming safety poles for kids consisting of a metre or so of fairly rigid foam about 3 inches in diameter. Cut into convenient lengths these allow you to insert the hook where you like and wind the rest avoiding kinks. The ends are slotted into easily made slits (again where you like). Mark the slits with a marker pen. Cost negligible

Be careful what you put on line. This is the codeword for the Shoni Mafia.

Picture getting clearer, thanks Peter

Looking again at carp fishing after very many years chasing trout, I cannot understand why the main line has to be used to hair rig a hook bait. Isn’t that too high a price to pay for the otherwise supremely elegant knotless knot? Or is a conventional knot at the eye something to be avoided at all costs? If it is, wouldn’t it be better to arrive at the water with a couple of dozen baits ready-tied to a few inches fine mono or even heavy duty sewing thread. It would then presumably not be difficult to trap the hair in the coils of the knotless knot at the desired position on the shank. Or am I missing something?